Hosea 2:1-2

Say to your brethren Many interpreters consider this verse as being connected with the preceding chapter, thus: When that general restoration of the Jewish nation shall take place, you may change your language in speaking to those of your brethren and sisters whom I had before disowned, and you may call them Ammi, my people, and Ruhamah, she that hath obtained mercy. The prophet alludes to the 6th and 9th verses of the preceding chapter. Other expositors, however, with more apparent reason, consider this verse as connected with the following words, and translate it thus: “Ye that are my people, and have obtained mercy, speak to your brethren and sisters, and plead with your mother,” &c. “Although the Israelites, in the days of Hosea, were in general corrupt, and addicted to idolatry; yet there were among them, in the worst times, some who had not bowed the knee to Baal. These were always Ammi and Ruhamah; God's own people, and a darling daughter. God commissions these faithful few to admonish the inhabitants of the land in general, of the dreadful judgments that would be brought upon them by the gross idolatry of the Jewish Church and nation;” and to reprove, and use their best endeavours to reform that general corruption which the nation had contracted by its idolatry; whereby the people had broken the covenant God had made with them, and had caused a separation, or divorce, between him and them. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms, &c. Let her leave off her idolatries. These are often expressed in the Scriptures by the fondness and caresses which pass between unchaste lovers.